The Continuation of the Fourth Battle
Descent of Neptune in aid of the Greeks—His exhortations addressed to the Chiefs—The Trojans harangued by Hector, and the battle renewed with great fury—Hector’s advance checked by the Ajaxes, who rally the Greeks—Exploits of Meriones and Idomeneus—Idomeneus forced to retire by Deïphobus and Aeneas—The Trojans, hard pressed on their left, are rallied by Hector—Reproof of Paris by Hector, and mutual defiance of Hector and Ajax.
When Jove had brought the Trojans and their chief, Hector, beside the ships, he left them there To toil and struggle and endure, while he Turned his resplendent eyes upon the land Of Thracian horsemen, and the Mysians, skilled To combat hand to hand, and the famed tribe Of long-lived Hippomulgi, reared on milk, And the most just of men. On Troy no more He turned those glorious eyes, for now he deemed That none of all the gods would seek to aid Either the Greeks or Trojans in the strife.
The monarch Neptune kept no idle watch; For he in Thracian Samos, dark with woods, Aloft upon the highest summit sat O’erlooking thence the tumult of the war; For thence could he behold the Idaean mount, And Priam’s city, and the Grecian fleet. There, coming from the ocean-deeps, he sat, And pitied the Greek warriors put to rout Before the Trojans, and was wroth with Jove. Soon he descended from those rugged steeps, And trod the earth with rapid strides; the hills And forests quaked beneath the immortal feet Of Neptune as he walked. Three strides he took, And at the fourth reached Aegae, where he stopped, And where his sumptuous palace-halls were built, Deep down in ocean, golden,